Two long-time baseball fans (and players of a “certain” skill level) air their views on current baseball happenings and trends. With 2014 season now underway, we’re fully-armed with cogent comments on what’s happening in the major and minor leagues, observations on how the game’s past impacts its present and how what’s going on in the present might impact baseball’s future. Welcome!

Thursday, May 1, 2014

The Greatest Lineup Ever?

I can remember watching some star-studded and dominant National League lineups in All-Star games in the 1960's. It was mostly due to the American League owners' tardiness in scouting and signing black players. (They probably still called them colored.) The NL got almost all of the best black players.

So, for instance, in 1963 here were the lineups, one mostly black, the other almost all white. Oh ya, Bill White doesn't count as white.

The American League The National League

C Elston Howard Joe Torre

1B Joe Pepitone Bill White, Orlando Cepeda

2B Nellie Fox Bill Mazeroski

3B Brooks Robinson Ron Santo

SS Luis Aparicio Maury Wills

OF Mickey Mantle Willie Mays

OF Harmon Killebrew Stan Musial

OF Al Kaline Hank Aaron

OF Carl Yaztrsemski Roberto Clemente

P Jim Bunning Sandy Koufax

P Juan Pizarro Juan Marichal

P Mudcat Grant Don Drysdale

P Jim Bouton Warren Spahn

Torre, Mazeroski, Santo, Musial, Koufax, and Drysdale were the only white guys for the NL and Musial and Spahn were really from another era. Elston Howard was the exception that proved the rule for the AL.

That the National League won by just two runs seems amazing. Talk about the Al being overmatched. But there once was an American League lineup that might just have beaten that NL squad.

Long before there were all-star games, a game was played - on July 24 1911 in Cleveland - to benefit the widow of Addie Joss, the Cleveland Naps' outstanding pitcher. He had died suddenly after contracting tubercular meningitis in a day when there were no antibiotics.

Each AL club was asked to send a couple of its best players. Ty Cobb was the first star to indicate that he would play in the game. Without further ado, here is the lineup for the All-Stars.

OF Clyde Milan (an outstanding fielder who was averaging 30 assists a year)

P Walter Johnson (Hall of Fame) for Cleveland Cy Young (Hall of Fame)

P Ed Walsh (Hall of Fame)

I'm not sure Bobby Wallace should be in the Hall of Fame, but maybe Clyde Milan should be. And, of course Joe Jackson should certainly be.

Trivia: Did Ty Cobb ever wear a uniform other than a Tiger uniform? Well, he played the last two years of his career in Philadelphia. Any others? Yes, for the game just described he wore a Cleveland uniform. He'd left his in Detroit.

Speaking of Cobb, boy did he have a crummy year in 1916. He didn't even win the batting title! Well, he hadn't won it in 1910 either, but that was because the St. Louis Browns had their third baseman play in the outfield so the much more popular Nap Lajoie, "the Frenchman", could win the beautiful Chalmers automobile. (Hell, Larry was so popular the Cleveland Blues changed their name to the Naps.) The company was so thrilled by the publicity and scandal they gave each guy a car. The Browns' manager got fired over it.

Anyway, back to 1916 when Cobb stunk the place out. He had won the batting title in 1907, '08, '09, 1910, 1911 (he hit .420, Jackson hit just .408), 1912 (he hit .409, Jackson hit just .395), 1913 (he hit .390, Jackson hit just .373, ouch), 1914 and '15.

I know I digress - again - but my vote for the actor who looks the least like the guy he was portraying has to be Ray Liotta as Jackson in Field of Dreams. Joe wasn't quite that handsome. Of course Hollywood had lard arses William Bendix and John Goodman play the athletic Babe Ruth. (123 stolen bases)

Cobb won the batting title in 1917, 1918, and 1919. But in 1916 he hit just .371. Tris Speaker, the rough as nails cowboy who roamed centerfield in the still new Fenway park, batted .386.

After 1919 it was all downhill for Cobb. In 1920 He hit a measly .334. Gorgeous George Sisler hit .407. In '21 Cobb batted .389. Not bad, but teammate Harry Heilmann hit .394. In 1922 Cobb hit .401. Sisler hit .422.

I am a fan of Baseball Reference as a quick source of stats. But I was looking up Cobb's numbers and I see that, apparently because a bunch of morons have gone on their site and voted against Cobb (of course everyone hated him when he played too) he is rated as the 29th best hitter in baseball history. PARDON?!!!

WTF. I don't have a problem with their top ten - Ruth, Wagner, Gehrig, Williams, Mays, Musial, Aaron, Speaker, Eddie Collins, and Hornsby, except that Cobb should be first second or third along with Ruth and Williams.

Let me tell you something about Ty Cobb, forget about his ferocious all-out style (didn't get Pete Rose in the Hall) and forget about all his stolen bases. We're just talking batting here.

If he is not at the top because of a lack of power, in spite of a lot of RBIs before that was a big thing, remember he did lead the league a couple of times. And, the parks were cavernous when he played and the ball wasn't wound tightly until 1920 and it was almost black because of dirt and spit by the second inning - probably about three innings before it was taken out of play.

Cobb hated players like Ruth who swung for the fences. One time he said to some reporters, "Fine, I will show you that I could hit home runs if I chose to." In the next three games he had five.

Will and Rick spent many years together in the softball minor leagues as members of the legendary Hogtown Bombers. Despite this, they’ve remained good friends who are avidly interested in all things baseball, from its history, to its impact on society and popular culture, to the current season. They’re also very opinionated.

Please settle in with a cold beer, a bag of freshly-roasted peanuts, maybe a hotdog, and join the between-pitches banter in our virtual ballpark.

Followers

Will Braund

Will was a consistent .300+ hitter while playing third base in a west Toronto men’s baseball league before joining Rick and John on the Hogtown Bombers.

In the early ’90s, he was hired by the Toronto Blue Jays to work at their Instructional Camp for Teenagers in the west end of Toronto.

Will received an Honours degree in history and taught middle school for twenty years before getting a Masters degree in Educational Administration and becoming a principal.

He recently retired, but has started a company called “Making Canadian History Fun” and now goes into schools to share fascinating anecdotes from history.

He also teaches the kids some inside baseball.

Will spends as much time reading about baseball as he does about history.

Will writes on Tuesdays.

Rick Blechta

Rick is a reformed Yankees fan who now follows the Toronto Blue Jays. With a large collection of books on baseball, he has a firm grounding in the history of the game, but his real interest is the current state of baseball and where it’s going.

He also has a career as a writer of crime fiction (thrillers to be exact) and has a new one coming out next fall — just as the baseball post season starts heating up. Read all about it at www.rickblechta.com. As well, he contributes weekly to a blog dedicated to crime writing: Type M for Murder. Lastly, he has created a blog dedicated to food and all things delicious: A Man for All Seasonings. Check them both out!